TY - JOUR

T1 - When to be a dear enemy

T2 - flexible acoustic relationships of neighbouring skylarks, Alauda arvensis

AU - Briefer, Elodie

AU - Rybak, Fanny

AU - Aubin, Thierry

N1 - Funding Information: This study was supported by the CNRS and the University of Paris 11. E.B. is funded by a grant from the French Minister of Research and Technology. We thank Peter Narins for comments and English improvement. We are grateful to the anonymous referees for comments and suggestions.

PY - 2008/10

Y1 - 2008/10

N2 - Numerous territorial species are less aggressive towards neighbours than strangers. This tolerance towards neighbouring conspecifics, termed the 'dear enemy' effect, seems to be a flexible feature of the relationship between neighbours, and has been shown to disappear in some species after experimental or natural modifications of the context. However, the maintenance over time of this singular relationship has been poorly studied. In this study, we followed the change of dear enemy relationships during the breeding season in a territorial songbird with a complex song, the skylark. We examined in the field the response of territory owners to playbacks of neighbour and stranger songs at three periods of the breeding season, corresponding to three ecological and social situations. Results showed that neighbours were dear enemies in the middle of the season, when territories were stable, but not at the beginning of the breeding season, during settlement and pair formation, nor at the end, when bird density increased owing to the presence of young birds becoming independent. Thus, the dear enemy relationship is not a fixed pattern but a flexible one likely to evolve with social and ecological circumstances.

AB - Numerous territorial species are less aggressive towards neighbours than strangers. This tolerance towards neighbouring conspecifics, termed the 'dear enemy' effect, seems to be a flexible feature of the relationship between neighbours, and has been shown to disappear in some species after experimental or natural modifications of the context. However, the maintenance over time of this singular relationship has been poorly studied. In this study, we followed the change of dear enemy relationships during the breeding season in a territorial songbird with a complex song, the skylark. We examined in the field the response of territory owners to playbacks of neighbour and stranger songs at three periods of the breeding season, corresponding to three ecological and social situations. Results showed that neighbours were dear enemies in the middle of the season, when territories were stable, but not at the beginning of the breeding season, during settlement and pair formation, nor at the end, when bird density increased owing to the presence of young birds becoming independent. Thus, the dear enemy relationship is not a fixed pattern but a flexible one likely to evolve with social and ecological circumstances.

KW - Alauda arvensis

KW - dear enemy relationships

KW - oscine

KW - playback experiment

KW - skylark

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=51549095126&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.anbehav.2008.06.017

DO - 10.1016/j.anbehav.2008.06.017

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:51549095126

VL - 76

SP - 1319

EP - 1325

JO - Animal Behaviour

JF - Animal Behaviour

SN - 0003-3472

IS - 4

ER -